Tag: delicious

Navratri is my favourite festival! In Gujarat, the cities takes on a whole new appearance during Navratri.

But for the last couple of years, I have been really excited about attending the Durga Puja in Ahmedabad for the amazing energy around the pandaal and most importantly, the delicious fish delicacies. I have made some wonderful Bengali friends over the last one year and that makes this year’s Durga Puja even more special for me.

As the Ahmedabad skies cleared up this morning, my enthusiasm for attending the puja tonight has doubled and I made Dim Poshto, a delicious combo of eggs in a rich poppy seeds’ gravy to mark the festivities.

My recipe is the same as that of Egg Masala, except with the addition of poppy seeds paste and coconut milk. There are three steps to the recipe:

Boil eggs and cut them in halves. Marinate them in salt, turmeric, coriander powder, garam masala, red chilli powder and a little oil and keep aside for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, heat oil in a pan and shallow fry the eggs with the yolk side down. Turn them over carefully and cook till the masala turns brown. Keep aside.

Once the poppy seeds remain soaked for an hour, grind them into a smooth paste with green chillies.

To make the gravy, heat oil, add clove and bay leaf. Add onion and ginger-garlic paste. Stir and cook till the onions turn translucent. Add turmeric, coriander and red chilli powder. Add water to prevent the mixture from sticking to the pan. Cover and cook. After a couple of minutes, add the poppy-green chilly paste. Bring it to a boil and cook till you get the desired consistency. Serve with a drizzle of mustard oil on top. Tastes best with hot, steamed rice.

I have been invited for a slumber party tonight by my best friend Kavitha Nair, who I have known from my kindergarten days. It feels like I am back to my growing up years when there would be these unplanned ‘pyjama’ parties, an entire night of snacking, sharing secrets and talking about the latest crush. So, after many years when my bestie decided to invite me over, I thought, ‘how can food be left out of a slumber party’?

A fudge-y, chocolate-y delight! These brownies combine the best of both worlds–the moist texture of a fudge and the rise of a cake

So I decided to bake some chock-walnut fudge brownies that we can eat all night over gossip, after a quick dinner. Right from our first day at kindergarten till when we were in high school, Kavitha and I would always sit next to each other in class. Like most kids, we have been pulled up by teachers for excessive talking during class 😛 The canteen culture had just begun back then and it was considered uncool to bring lunch boxes from home. Most kids would wait for the recess bell to ring to hang out by the canteen while Kavitha and I used to sit back in class and share our lunch from, where else, our tiffin boxes. Once in a while, we used to buy some chocolates from the roadside stall just out side our school’s entrance. She is somebody who would let me have her piece of chocolate as soon as I finished mine, something even my younger brother never did 😀

Once, we decided to “run away” from school because we both felt that there was too much pressure on us to study. I told her to pack some snacks and nail paint, which we would use to pass our time while we hid from school authorities and till our parents “rescued us” 😉 God, we were so stupid! However, she developed a cold feet at the last minute and told me it would be wrong for us to do that. Thank God, at least one of us was mature!

She moved to a different school after class X and then we both chose different streams to pursue higher studies. Today, we may not talk on a daily basis and hardly meet each other for months in spite of living in the same city. But, our beautiful friendship has grown stronger with each passing year!

Chocolate Walnut Fudge Brownie

Ingredients

Dark chocolate or milk chocolate – 2 bars of 200 gms

Cocoa powder- 2 tbs

Castor sugar or powdered brown sugar -1 cup

Eggs, room temperature- 2 nos

Butter, room temperature -1/2 cup

Flour-3/4 cup

Walnuts- 1/2 cup

Vanilla essence-1 tsp

Baking powder-1 tsp

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Grease a square or rectangle shaped baking tray with butter.

Melt butter and chocolate in a bowl in microwave for 20-30 seconds or use a double boiler method, if you are comfortable with that. In another bowl, whisk eggs and keep aside. Mix together the dry ingredients, nuts and add vanilla essence. Once the chocolate-butter mixture has cooled, add the whisked eggs and fold in the dry ingredients. Make sure the chocolate mixture has cooled or the eggs will start cooking, ruining the texture of your brownie.

Pour this mixture into the baking tray and bake for 35-40 minutes or till a fork or toothpick comes out clean. Leave it on a rack to cool and then cut into squares or triangles.